Category Archives: Politics

Labour will set up ‘young futures’ youth programme to tackle knife crime

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Yvette Cooper will announce scheme that will also offer mental health support

Yvette Cooper will set up a £100m “tough love” youth programme to help tackle a knife crime epidemic and a mental health crisis among UK teenagers if Labour is elected, she will announce.

On Tuesday, the shadow home secretary will tell the Labour party conference in Liverpool that the “young futures” programme will target 92 communities under a Keir Starmer-led government that are blighted by youth crime and violence.

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Keir Starmer to promise new powers for all of England’s towns and cities

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Exclusive: Labour leader to pledge biggest expansion of devolution since party was last in power

A new Labour government would give all towns and cities in England new powers and funding to boost local economies, deliver thousands of new homes and create high-quality jobs, Keir Starmer will announce.

In the biggest expansion of devolution since Labour was last in power, he will pledge that councils and combined authorities would get more control over housing and planning, skills, energy and transport of the kind currently held by London, the West Midlands and Greater Manchester.

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Rishi Sunak says UK is ‘poised’ to offer Israel military help if required

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UK prime minister will chair Cobra meeting as death toll continues to rise after Hamas’s surprise attack

Rishi Sunak has pledged to provide diplomatic, intelligence or security support to Israel if requested after attacks by Hamas, as he chaired an emergency meeting of Cobra.

No 10 said the UK stood “poised” to help Israel militarily if it asked for assistance and is not ruling out evacuating some British citizens from affected areas, saying keeping them safe was the “utmost priority”.

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Rachel Reeves says Labour will get rid of ‘obstacles created by antiquated planning system’ – UK politics live

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Shadow chancellor will tell party conference that Labour wants to be the party of building and infrastructure

In normal circumstances, Labour conference would be front-page news, but this week’s event has being overshadowed by the war between Israel and Hamas. Rachel Reeves has been taking questions on this in her morning interviews and she stressed Labour’s support for Israel. In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, asked about claims that the “occupation of Palestine” had provoked the attacks by Hamas, Reeves replied:

Gaza is not occupied by Israel.

The real cause of what is happening now is a terrorist attack. If Britain or any other country was attacked by terrorists, we would believe, and rightly so, that we have every right to defend ourselves, to get back hostages and to protect our citizens.

Speeding up the planning for critically important infrastructure by updating all national policy statements – which set out what types of projects the country needs – within the first six months of a Labour government.

Fast-tracking the planning process for priority growth areas of the economy, such as battery factories, laboratories, and 5G infrastructure.

If we want to spur investment, restore economic security, and revive growth. Then we must get Britain building again.

The Tories would have you believe we can’t build anything anymore. In fact, the single biggest obstacle to building infrastructure, to investment and to growth in this country is the Conservative party itself.

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How Tories’ green hostility will hinder a future Labour government

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Experts say current policies will make it tougher for Keir Starmer to mend UK’s economy and climate goals

The Conservative government’s hostility to net zero and environmental policy will make it tougher for Labour to pursue green growth and mend the damage to the UK’s economy and climate goals if elected, experts have warned.

Anti-green rhetoric was one of the strongest themes of the Tory party conference last week, with the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, warning about the costs of net zero policies as his ministers took even stronger attack lines.

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England’s university free speech tsar says role is not to conduct ‘culture wars’

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Arif Ahmed pledges to remain politically neutral in his role and to ensure academic freedoms are maintained

England’s newly appointed university free speech tsar says his role is not to conduct “culture wars” and has pledged to be politically neutral in his efforts to combat threats to academic freedom.

Arif Ahmed, a former philosophy professor at Cambridge University, said he would measure his success or failure by surveys of students and by the number of complaints made under procedures being created by the Office for Students (OfS), England’s higher education regulator.

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Businesses are turning to Labour in droves, says Darren Jones

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Shadow chief secretary to the Treasury says multinationals are ‘crying out for stability and competence’

Businesses are “crying out for stability and competence” and are turning in droves to Labour after losing hope with the government the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury has said.

Speaking to the Guardian before a speech by his boss, Rachel Reeves, at the Labour conference, Darren Jones said the scale of renewed corporate interest in Labour meant he was spending almost the entire event meeting business leaders.

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Working class deserting Tories in droves under Rishi Sunak, poll finds

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But report says Labour lead is much narrower among working-class voters than electorate as a whole and urges focus on fairness

Working-class people who were a key part of the coalition of voters that delivered the Conservatives’ 2019 general election win have been deserting the party in droves under Rishi Sunak’s leadership, polling has found.

Only 44% of working-class voters who voted for the Tories in 2019 say they will back the party next time, according to research by YouGov released as Keir Starmer prepares to make what will probably be his last pitch for support at a Labour conference before a general election.

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Labour’s Wes Streeting interviewed at Labour party conference – UK politics live

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Shadow health secretary questioned by Guardian editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner

Q: You oppose the Rwanda policy because you don’t think it will work. If the supreme court rules it is legal, and deportations start and it is seen to be working, would you still reverse it.

Yes, says Starmer. He says it is the wrong policy. It is very expensive, and it only affect only a small number of people. And the policy does not deal with the problem at source.

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Ed Miliband to announce Labour plan to boost energy independence and cut bills

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Exclusive: Party says bill would enable UK electricity system to be fully based on clean power by 2030

Ed Miliband is to unveil Labour’s plan for an energy independence act, which would boost Britain’s energy independence and cut bills for families.

The party says the bill will enable a Labour government to establish a UK electricity system fully based on clean power by 2030, with the largest expansion of renewable power in Britain’s history, and establish “GB Energy”, a publicly owned energy company announced by Keir Starmer last year.

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Starmer warns Labour: ‘Don’t get giddy over prospect of election victory’

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In an exclusive interview, the party’s leader says it is on course for Downing Street, but must not repeat past opposition mistakes

• Keir Starmer interview

Keir Starmer on Sunday warns his party not to become “giddy” about the prospect of power, as he declares that Labour is “bang on schedule” to win the next general election.

After his party’s stunning win over the Scottish National party in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection, the Labour leader uses an exclusive interview with the Observer to spell out how a Labour government will “power” economic growth across the country by training up hundreds of thousands of workers in a new nationwide network of skills colleges, geared to the needs of local economies and industries of the future.

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Labour’s stunning Scottish byelection win means there may be little need to bargain with the SNP

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A decade of SNP dominance will be swept away in Scotland if Labour can repeat its Rutherglen success at a general election

Thursday was a big day for Scottish Labour. Within minutes of the declaration that Labour had retaken Rutherglen and Hamilton West from the SNP, phones and social media lit up with triumphant messages from the winning party. And with good reason. This was the best result for Labour in a Scottish byelection since the second world war, and the worst for the SNP since the independence referendum upended Scottish politics.

Some caveats apply. This was one of the SNP’s most marginal seats, where Labour prevailed as recently as 2017. A cloud of scandal hung over a contest triggered after the sitting MP Margaret Ferrier was sanctioned for repeatedly breaking Covid rules. As Boris Johnson has learned, voters judge such behaviour harshly.

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Poll predicts landslide Labour election victory with 12 cabinet ministers losing their seats

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Dramatic findings point to Conservatives losing every red wall seat that they secured at the last election

Labour is currently on course to win a landslide victory on the scale of 1997, according to dramatic new modelling that points to the Conservatives losing every red wall seat secured at the last election.

The Tories could also lose more than 20 constituencies in its southern blue wall strongholds and achieve a record-low number of seats, according to a constituency-by-constituency model seen by the Observer. Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden, defence secretary Grant Shapps and leadership contender Penny Mordaunt are among those facing defeat. Some 12 cabinet ministers face being unseated unless Rishi Sunak can close Labour’s poll lead.

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Chris Grayling joins list of Tories standing down at next election

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MP since 2001, nicknamed ‘Failing Grayling’ for fraught record as transport secretary, says time for a change after cancer treatment

Chris Grayling, the former transport secretary, has become the latest Conservative MP to announce he is standing down at the next general election.

Grayling said he had been successfully treated for prostate cancer this year and the diagnosis had led him to decide it was “time for a change”.

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Rishi Sunak ‘responsible for biggest income tax rise in at least 50 years’

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Resolution Foundation analysis claims stealth move of freezing tax thresholds will raise £40bn a year

Rishi Sunak’s government is responsible for the biggest income tax rise for decades in a stealth move that will raise £40bn a year, according to new analysis.

Taxpayers in the higher bracket will be handing over £3,700 a year more in tax as a result of a six-year freeze to income tax thresholds by 2027-28, the Resolution Foundation calculated.

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Labour would oversee ‘biggest boost in affordable housing in a generation’

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Exclusive: Deputy leader and shadow housing secretary Angela Rayner says party would get tough on developers

The next Labour government will oversee the biggest boost in affordable housing in a generation by getting tough on developers and reforming planning rules, the party’s deputy leader has said.

Angela Rayner, also the shadow housing secretary, said she wanted to “increase, not decrease” the number of affordable new homes built every year, after it fell 12% last year.

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What Labour’s Rutherglen victory means for SNP and UK politics

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Party’s victory may point to a change in Scottish political alignments that spells danger for Humza Yousaf

Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, had used the word “earthquake” last week to foreshadow Labour’s remarkable victory in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, where its winning margin of 30 percentage points exceeded even its predictions.

He did it cheekily, stealing one of the favourite lines often used by the former Scottish National party leader Alex Salmond when the nationalists were crushing Labour at repeated elections in the past. That theft of Salmond’s phrase has additional resonance. It points to a change in Scottish political alignments that spells danger for the SNP and its current leader, Humza Yousaf.

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‘Seismic night in Scotland’: Labour crushes SNP in Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection

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Michael Shanks wins contest Labour considered a crucial test of apparent turnaround of its fortunes in Scotland

Scottish Labour’s Michael Shanks has won the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection in an overwhelming victory over the SNP that his party leadership declared “seismic”, and a clear demonstration that Scotland could lead the way in delivering a Labour government at Westminster at the coming general election.

In a result that exceeded Scottish Labour expectation, Shanks beat his closest rival, the SNP’s Katy Loudon, by 17,845 votes to 8,399 – a majority of 9,446 and a resounding swing of more than 20 percentage points.

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‘Choose London’: Sadiq Khan steps up efforts to lure EU citizens post-Brexit

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Exclusive: Mayor vows to make capital a better place to live to offset ‘shockwaves’ from EU departure

The mayor of London has urged EU citizens to “choose London” over other European cities, promising to make the UK capital a better place to live and work despite Brexit.

Sadiq Khan told the Guardian he had redoubled his efforts to attract EU citizens since the UK left the bloc, notwithstanding new barriers such as visa requirements.

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Teachers deride Starmer’s plan for supervised toothbrushing in schools

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Labour leader’s pledge for English primaries as part of a wider dental plan labelled ‘window dressing’ by union chief

School leaders have accused Labour of “window dressing” after Keir Starmer pledged to introduce supervised toothbrushing for young children in England’s primary schools.

While the policy has long been supported by the dentistry profession as a way of curbing decay, headteachers said it was not appropriate for their staff to check whether pupils had cleaned their teeth.

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